Broadway babies Vanessa Williams and k.d. lang

Monday

Mar 24, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By Liz Smith

'Life upon the wicked stage ain't ever what a girl supposes. Stage door Johnny's outraging over you with gems and roses/When you let a fella take your hand, which means an extra beer or sandwich. ... Wild old men who give you jewels and sables only live in Aesop's fables/Life upon the wicked stage is nothin' for a girl."

So goes the old Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein ditty from "Showboat."

Still, some girls prefer beer and sandwiches, because there are other compensations. For example, gorgeous Vanessa Williams.

Vanessa is taking over from the great k.d. lang, who filled that role for about a month, and brilliantly, I hear.

I never had the chance to see k.d., which I regret. She is one of the most brilliant, distinctive singers of her time — of all time! Her output is below the radar, mostly. She works for a small label and doesn't allow herself, or her work, to be over-publicized. But she's not above the grand gesture.

Toward the end of her run in "After Midnight" a fan sent a note to the press people, saying that if k.d. came out at the end of the show and sang her masterful rendition of "Hallelujah" the fan would contribute $10,000 to the Actors Fund. She did, brought down the house and made 10 grand for the Actors Fund.

But when a similar request — for a $20,000 charity donation — came with the request for k.d. to sing Roy Orbison's "Crying," which she made her own 20 years ago, k.d. refused. "I've retired that song. I'll never sing it again." Too bad. Not even Orbison got what k.d. did out of that slow-building ballad.

Endthought: Just when we thought CNN had plumbed the lowest depths in its nonstop coverage of the Malaysian plane tragedy, the network last week went into subterranean bad taste. They turned it into a grisly quiz show, with so-called anchors taking Twitter questions from — I am sorry to say — rather idiotic people, with idiotic "theories." It became rather jovial, although some of the "experts," who felt obliged to answer these queries, looked a little sick to their stomachs.

But this didn't stop the CNN guys from going: "Oh, and for this one, we'll give it toooo...."

All that was missing was a buzzer and an announcement of a "winner." Just disgraceful.